Basilica di Santa Margherita d'Antiochia

The Basilica of Saint Margaret of Antioch in Santa Margherita Ligure is a Baroque parish church with a medieval history and a prominent collection of Genoese art.

Why it matters

A place of worship stood here by the thirteenth century. The parish was re-established in 1646, and construction of the present church began in 1658; it was consecrated in 1770. Pope Pius XII granted it the title of minor basilica in 1951. The church is also associated with the devotion to Nostra Signora della Rosa.

What to notice

The basilica has a Latin-cross plan with three aisles, a dome and two bell towers from different periods. Frescoes by the Vacca brothers, painted in 1826, depict the life and martyrdom of Saint Margaret. The church holds paintings attributed to Valerio Castello, Bernardo Castello, Paolo Gerolamo Piola, Giovanni Battista Casoni, Giovanni Andrea Carlone and Giuseppe Isola, as well as sculpture by Giacomo Antonio Ponsonelli and a processional figure associated with Maragliano. A medieval wooden Madonna della Rosa stands behind the high altar.

Context and history

The current church developed over more than a century. A design is attributed to Giovanni Battista Ghiso; construction was consolidated through a campaign in 1672, and in 1666 Cardinal Stefano Spinola raised the parish to the status of arcipretura and plebania. The building combines a seventeenth-century structure, eighteenth-century facade and towers, nineteenth-century frescoes and a second tower added in the twentieth century. The parvis was repaved in the Ligurian pebble technique known as risseu in 1975.